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Liner Notes (April 8th, 2023)

Posted by Jason Tate

This week reflects a little on the last seven years of Chorus, some of the music out this week, and some random other thoughts. There’s also a playlist of ten songs worth your time, and this week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.

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A Few Things

  • Hello again. This week marked the seventh anniversary of launching Chorus.fm. I don’t have much to say besides thank you to everyone that continues to read the website or this newsletter on a weekly basis and supports its existence. While AbsolutePunk will undoubtably always be what I’m most known for, Chorus has become everything I wanted it to be when I first moved over. A place where I feel a freedom and comfort to write about what I want to when I want to and to feel unburdened from the past. I was thinking this past week that during the AP years, I never stopped listening to music, I was listening to a lot of music, but I always sort of felt a pressure to move on to the next thing quickly. Needing to keep up on the next album that was going to be released, the next cycle to promote, the next big thing, and it meant I wasn’t spending the time to sink into albums in the way I wanted. It was primarily self-imposed, but I think it pulled some of the joy from the experience. I didn’t feel free to spend a week listening to nothing new. I couldn’t return to a band or album from my past or dive deep into a catalog for fear of missing the dialogue or conversation. Reflecting on the past seven years, precisely the last two, I’ve felt that weight removed, and it’s allowed my experience with music to feel reinvigorated and refreshed. I don’t know how much of that is explicitly related to the change from what AbsolutePunk was to Chorus, or how much of it is just getting older and more mature. But I do know I’ve come to enjoy, appreciate, and cherish my relationship with music again in way that was missing a decade ago.

In Case You Missed It

Music Thoughts

  • This week sees the release of the new one from Ruston Kelly. I’ve written about this album a few times in past newsletters, and it comes highly recommended. From songs like “Let Only Love Remain” to “Better Now,” it’s an album I could see featuring highly in end-of-the-year lists come December.
  • I’ve only had time to listen to Cub Sport’s new album twice so far, but it’s a solid pop album at first blush. Not quite as experimental sounding as their previous, but breezy, and it had Hannah bopping her head along to it this morning.
  • Strung Out has been one of my most listened-to bands ever since I saw a sticker for the band on Tom DeLonge’s guitar way back when. I love their melodic punk and have always been drawn to Jason Cruz’s vocals. Yesterday he released his second solo album, and it’s more of an Americana vibe, not that far removed from the acoustic Strung Out album from a few years back. It’s the kind of album that makes me think of coastline drives or lying on the beach with headphones.
  • I was listening to those old Rufio albums at the gym this week, which got me to revisit Scott Sellers’s solo albums as well. I saw someone post in the forums that Scott “has stayed true to his signature sound probably more than anyone else in the entire music industry.” And that’s a pretty good way to sum it up. He’s also highly prolific, and I am always surprised when he comes up with album full album with new ideas. In fact, I think his latest solo release might be his best yet. Just a fast, riff-heavy, pop-punk album. It’s also now on Apple Music.
  • Got back on a Butch Walker kick this week—just an immensely replayable discography for virtually any mood.
  • I saw a lot of mentions about the Wednesday and Daughter releases in the forums this week, so that’ll probably be what I check out next.

The Stats: Over the past week, I listened to 48 different artists, 68 different albums, and 502 different tracks (547 scrobbles). My most listened-to artist last week was Butch Walker, with Sycamore Meadows being my most-played album. Here is my Top 9 from last week, and you can follow me on Apple Music and/or Last.fm.

Entertainment Thoughts

  • She Said was decent. I’m a sucker for journalism films, but this one felt a little thin to me.
  • Creed III was fun, a nice directorial debut from MBJ, but overall pretty predictable.
  • I’m happy to report that Party Down has been an excellent and worthy addition to the series.
  • Our current nightly show is Poker Face. I’ve always loved these kinds of serial murder mystery shows, and this is a well-written, clever take on the genre.

Random and Personal Stuff

  • Hannah has been baking croissant dough this morning. I’ve been sitting on the couch doing some weekend work and writing. We’re meeting up with some friends for dinner tonight to sort of kind of celebrate a bunch of us turning 40 within the last few months. I’ve got New Found Glory playing on the speakers throughout the home, one cat is doing somersaults on the floor, and the other is napping. You know, there could be worse ways to spend a Saturday morning.

Ten Songs

Here are ten songs that I listened to and loved this week. Some may be new, some may be old, but they all found their way into my life during the past seven days.

  1. Ruston Kelly – Let Only Love Remain
  2. Jason Cruz – Wolves
  3. Cub Sport – Replay
  4. City and Colour – Things We Choose to Care About
  5. LIES – No Shame
  6. Scott Sellers – Until it Hurts
  7. PVRIS – Good Enemy
  8. Boy Genius – Cool About It
  9. NERIAH – Falling 4 Somebody
  10. Butch Walker – Passed Your Place, Saw Your Car, Thought Of You

This playlist is available on Spotify and Apple Music.

Community Watch

The trending and popular threads in our community this week include:

The most liked post in our forums last week was this one by Jason Tate in the “Q&A and Chat With Jason Tate” thread.

Previous editions of Liner Notes can be found here.

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